Family practice and social work: who really cares?

Fragmentation of services in rural practice can create many frustrations for physicians, often demanding extra time, skills, and energy. Can collaboration between the family physician and a community-based social worker reduce stresses in a rural practice? The authors discuss cases that illustrate how physicians and social workers can work together in a semi-rural socially deprived area. The effect of collaboration in this medical practice has been to reduce the time spent contacting resources, to broaden the physician's skills and knowledge to include social and economic needs in the assessment of patient health, and to increase interest in political action and self-help initiatives within the community.